The Week

Some advocates of “coexistence” are more vulnerable than others, and so it is possible that the recent (8.5 per cent) “reduction” of the Soviet Union’s military budget will be submitted as evidence that things are getting better. Now entirely aside from the fact that the Soviets are free to manipulate their statistics any way they want, they took the occasion to announce an increase in the outlay for “heavy industries” (in Soviet parlance, armament industries). And the military budget, proper, is still higher than it was in 1954 (18.2 per cent, as against 17.8 per cent). Which is a pretty honest assessment of the intensity the cold war has reached a few months after Geneva; namely, we have “progressed” beyond 1954.

The National Committee for an Effective Congress whose formula for making Congress effective is, roughly speaking, to emasculate it, complained last week that “extremist leaders” of the “radical right,” including Senators Knowland, Bridges, Eastland and Jenner, were “launching an intensive effort to recreate an atmosphere of fear and suspicion” in which they “might once again become a dominating political factor.” So the Committee has called for a national mobilization of Liberals. To what end? To accomplish what Mr. Joseph Rauh of the ADA yearns for (see “Liberals, Elections and Luxury,” p. 7 below): an exciting, democratic competition between candidates who are entirely agreed on every issue.

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Some advocates of “coexistence” are more vulnerable than others, and so it is possible that the recent (8.5 per cent) “reduction” of the Soviet Union’s military budget will be submitted as evidence that things are getting better. Now entirely aside from the fact that the Soviets are free to manipulate their statistics any way they want, they took the occasion to announce an increase in the outlay for “heavy industries” (in Soviet parlance, armament industries). And the military budget, proper, is still higher than it was in 1954 (18.2 per cent, as against 17.8 per cent). Which is a pretty honest assessment of the intensity the cold war has reached a few months after Geneva; namely, we have “progressed” beyond 1954.

The National Committee for an Effective Congress whose formula for making Congress effective is, roughly speaking, to emasculate it, complained last week that “extremist leaders” of the “radical right,” including Senators Knowland, Bridges, Eastland and Jenner, were “launching an intensive effort to recreate an atmosphere of fear and suspicion” in which they “might once again become a dominating political factor.” So the Committee has called for a national mobilization of Liberals. To what end? To accomplish what Mr. Joseph Rauh of the ADA yearns for (see “Liberals, Elections and Luxury,” p. 7 below): an exciting, democratic competition between candidates who are entirely agreed on every issue.